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Reader Comments (20)

This is what makes dealing with the modern wingnut party so difficult. The fica tax holiday was always meant as a temproary measure. It was passed in good faith with respect to Republican ideas on how to stimulate the economy.

To come back now and claim that it is somehow raising taxes to allow the tax holiday to end is absurd as these were taxes that were always going to have to be paid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so it goes with the deliberately misleading leftist word games. Just like the false leftie talking point that ending the "Bush tax cuts" wouldn't really be a tax increase, despite the fact that taxes would increase.

Are taxes going up, or not? Answer the question. Never mind; you don't need to strain yourself. Yes, taxes are going up. That, despite the pathetic protestations to the contrary, is a tax INCREASE.

This reminds me of another Great Leftie Lie, that reducing the rate of increase of a budgetary spending item is somehow a "cut."

But congrats to you lefties. Given your success in dumbing down education, you can now lie about stuff like this, and still fool half the population. Way to go.

Yes, a better way of saying it would be that reducing a rate of growth in budgetary spending may require cuts to the program benefits in the future. To say that reducing a growth rate is automatically equal to cuts can by hyperbolic. But that didn't stop Mitt Romney from using the same reasoning when talking about the Medicare spending reduction did it? So perhaps it isn't just a lefty thing.

And really, why are you blaming the left for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts? Perhaps if Republicans had been willing to scale back the massive Bush Tax Cuts a bit they could have gotten enough bi-partisan support to have made them permenant in the first place.

You can scream all you want about how Obamacare wasn't bi-partisan, but at least it got the 60 votes it needed in the Senate to pass.

Having been more focused on sun screen, golf, sailing and relaxing the last nine days I had only a passing view of the Washington politics. Not surprisingly when I read up on the fiscal train wreck on the way home both parties share the blame for letting the American public down again. Republicans for allowing themselves over a year ago to get caught in this fiscal box canyon debate that allowed taxes to rise and no spending cuts and Obama & dems for lying to the American public that their serious about deficit reduction. Barry be honest for once in your life and just say you want more money so can spend more money.

Btw, the Hawaiians were surprised Obama flew back to Hawaii for four days. What was Drudge's price tag on that one $7 million?? Is there still a person out there who actually is dumb enough to defend Obama's spend thrift ways which are exhibited by his vacation spending??

Actually no. Obamacare passed the Senate on a party line vote of 60-39 on December 24th, 2009. Subsequent to the election of Scott Brown, the House then went ahead and passed the Senate Bill with amendments which were later resolved under the reconciliation process.

Well, first of all, we're the richest nation on earth. We're not even close to being broke, we just don't have the collective will to pay for our government.

Secondly, if you look at the recent history of this country you'll notice that what we've seen is that during Republican Presidential administrations, since Reagain, is that Republicans pass policies, such as large tax cuts and huge spending increases, and say the hell with the deficit, but as soon as a Democrat gets into office then the Republican rallying cry is that we have to get the deficit down and that means we have to cut spending, cut spending, cut spending or the economy will shrivel up and die. And those cuts should never be from defense just from social welfare programs.

Thirdly, in the election of 2000, the country was faced with a pretty stark choice between a Democrat who wanted to continue the policies of the Clinton years and keep the country on good fiscal footing, and a Republican candidate who said tax cut tax cut tax cut and deficits don't matter. The tax cut deficits don't matter guy won and we stayed on that course for 8 years until a Democrat got into office and then it was all....THE DEFICIT THE DEFICIT THE DEFICIT.

Even I've come to believe that Republicans are really in favor of large deficits in the short term because it is the only means they have of selling their longer term goals of shrinking government at all costs.

Fouthly, all of this misdirected anger at Obama and this pathological need to fight Obama on every penny of spending and every initiative he might choose to undertake is really just Republcians being angry at themselves for not behaving in a more fiscally responsible manner from 2001 to 2009.

There has never been a Democrat outside of JFK who cut spending without being forced by a Republican President or Congress. I always love how tax cuts to successful people by Dems are "unfair" to the poor. First off it's my money, not the poor people of this country. I had nothing to do with their plight. Liberals somehow looks at me keeping my money as stealing from the poor. That's how f-up things have become. I now think everyone needs to pay takes so when Barry bloviates on about another "free" program we all know he's talking shit because nothing is free.

The Bush administration and Congress during his term were, in fact, horribly irresponsible. Granted. Now, how on earth does that fact justify ANY sort of support for Obama, who is far more fiscally irresponsible than Bush ever was?

Using your logic, you would probably try to defend Al Capone by pointing out the criminal record of his predecessors, Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio, while ignoring Capone's far worse record entirely.

The Bush administration and Congress during his term were, in fact, horribly irresponsible.

Glad we got that out of the way. Now if only the Republican Party could come to terms and admit that, then they'd be on the road to recovery.

Now to point you in the right direction, when you say that that the Obama has been worse than Bush, I'm going to assume that you're just a tad misinformed. The budget deficit has gone down under Obama. It was $1.41 trillion in FY2009 (Oct 2008- Sep 2009) to $1.1 trillion in 2012 (Oct 2011-Sep 2012).

The incredible expansion of the deficit from FY2008 to FY2009 was the direct result of the financial crisis. From $459 billion in 08 to 1.4 trillion in 09.

The deficit should go down further this year with the expiration of the payroll tax holiday and the expiration of certain parts of the Bush tax cuts. It will go down further once spending cuts are locked in later in the year. I'd expect that by the FY2015 Obama will have the budget deficit under $600 billion at least at this rate, which means that Obama will have cut the budget defict 57% from when he took office til his 6th year in office, while Bush and the Republicans in the period from 2001 to 2009 took a $128 billion surplus and turned it into a $1.4 trillion deficit.

All of the crocodile tears and hystrionics about how it's your money and not the government's money and not poor people's money, I have to say get over yourself. There isn't a country in the world worth living in that doesn't charge taxes to its citizens for the privilige of living in the country. And all countries worth living in have a social safety net for their population many if not most have one that is more robust than what we have here in the US.

And if you're paying the highest marginal rate that was negotiated in the fiscal cliff deal, you are earning at the minimum 7 times the income of the median household in this country. You're not an oppressed person in need of pity or rescue and you're certainly not a rape victim.

The combined annual deficits of Obama's first four years nearly exceed all Presidents that preceded him. He is on a pace to add another $4+ trillion in the next four years with debt commitments to the next administration that will add another $10 trillion between 2016-2026. Obama's name for decades if not centuries will be associated with over-spending, poor economic policy and runaway deficits. But congratulations, the democrats convinced 50.6% of low information (stupid) voters that Obama loves them more and "binders full of women" was a national crisis.

Skinny, I held my nose and followed that link. Must say it did not disappoint. Very funny, watching dedicated socialists trying to "explain" to brain dead leftists why their paychecks are smaller.

First thing to explain to the clueless, or at least to try to explain to them, is that when taxes go UP, that is, in fact, a tax INCREASE. This concept is extremely difficult for leftists to grasp. Someone should publish a Taxes for Dummies book. Or maybe start with Up vs. Down For Dummies.